Burying Ariel Read online

  As soon as I was in the car, I took the piece of charred paper from my bag. The acrid smell of smoke hit my nostrils. The handwriting was sprawling and fanciful, not Ariel’s small, neat script. Only one sentence was visible, but the words cut to the bone. “Nothing will ever separate us again.” Then there was a single initial: “C.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  As soon as I got home, I went to the family room and took down The Divine Comedy again. I was obeying an impulse I would have had difficulty explaining, but when the book fell open at Dante’s description of the Vestibule of Hell, where the Futile run perpetually after a whirling standard, I didn’t hesitate. I slid the burnt fragment of Charlie’s letter between the pages and replaced the book on the shelf. I might not have been the coldest beer in the fridge, but I recognized symbolism when I saw it.

  My son’s room was private territory, and I didn’t enter it without cause. That afternoon, I had cause. I needed to tap into my office mail, and Angus’s computer was the only one in the house with a modem. After I turned on his computer, I glanced up at the bulletin board above his desk. He called it his Zonkboard, and from the time he was ten, it had been a montage bristling with evidence of his deep but shifting passions: skateboarding, the Blue Jays, endangered species, water polo, the Referendum, hiking, Buddy Rich, the women of Lilith Fair. That afternoon, wallet-sized photos of members of the graduating class of Sheldon Williams C.I. were thumbtacked between articles about the perfidy of the New Right and the excellence of John Ralston Saul and Drew Barrymore. The Zonk Factoid of the Day was a newspaper clipping: “The Inuit of Greenland believe that a person possesses six or seven souls that take the form of tiny people scattered throughout the body.” It was, I thought as I turned back to the computer, an oddly comforting possibility.

  I typed a message announcing that on the following Tuesday I would begin teaching Ariel Warren’s Political Science 101 and asking anyone who had a copy of the text Political Perspectives to lend it to me until the end of classes. It was only after I hit send that I realized I’d cast my net too wide. Instead of limiting my request to our department, I’d entered the universal address for faculty and staff at the entire university. I discarded the idea of a follow-up message. In spring and summer, there were so many people who never opened e-mail that I would have been clogging the system.

  I was rereading my original note when Angus came in. He leaned over and peered at the screen. “I thought you had the summer off.”

  “So did I,” I said.

  He gave me an awkward pat. “Well, you still have the long weekend, so let’s rock. Taylor’s downstairs saying goodbye to her cats. If we don’t make our move soon, she’s going to fall apart.”

  I sighed with exasperation. “I’ve been through this with her a dozen times,” I said. “Sylvie O’Keefe is going to feed Benny and Bruce, and Jess is going to come over to play with them. It’s only three days, Angus.”

  He shrugged. “Tell that to T.”

  It was raining hard by the time we turned off onto the road to Katepwa. On the highway, we had listened to the drive-home show’s homage to the pleasures of barbecue and summer love. A fiery romance wasn’t on my weekend agenda, but the talk of sizzling meat was a reminder that within the next couple of hours I was going to be surrounded by a cottage full of hungry people. The dining room at the Katepwa Hotel served fine food at moderate prices, and it shared a kitchen with the Katepwa Pub, which served equally fine food that was cheap and available for take-out. As I slowed in front of the hotel, the boys and Taylor strained for a look at the lake. The rain was so heavy we could barely make out the beach, and as soon as I opened the car door I could hear the pounding of whitecaps against the shore.

  Jackets pulled over our heads, we raced to the pub. Judging from the crowd inside, it was apparent that others caught in the downpour had felt the pull of a clean well-lighted place. The Katepwa Pub was jumping. Taylor drifted towards a group crowded around a big-screen TV that was showing a Jodie Foster movie; the boys headed for the shuffleboard table. The centre of gravity was shifting.

  “Everybody back here with me,” I said. “You’re all underage, and we’re here to get food.”

  Angus perked up. “What are we getting?”

  “The special,” I said. “I don’t want to hang around while they cook dinner for seven people from scratch.”

  “I wonder what the special is?” Angus asked.

  “Chili,” Eli said. “It’s written on the chalkboard over there.”

  “But we had chili dogs after ball last night,” Angus groaned.

  “Sometimes the universe unfolds as it should,” I said.

  Angus frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I gave him a short jab in the shoulder. “It means there was a cosmic decision that, despite your best efforts, our family was destined to eat chili tonight.”

  The road to Ed and Barry’s was winding and muddy. Twice, we were within a hair’s breadth of sliding off the road, and twice, Eli, who had been entrusted with holding the hot food, manfully swallowed his yelp of pain when he got splashed. By the time we got to the cottage, the rain had stopped, but I was still edgy. Two of my children still had to drive that road, and one of them was with her husband and my only grandchild.

  Ed and Barry had waterfront property. The cottage was new, built five years earlier, but they had designed it to be timeless, and it had a rambling, wicker-and-wisteria grace, a closed-in porch overlooking the lake, two full bathrooms, and a Jacuzzi. In short, it was perfect, or it would be once everybody had arrived safely. As soon as we parked, Taylor and the boys flew out of the car. Willie was right behind them.

  “Can we just look at the lake?” Angus said.

  “After you’ve carried everything in from the car, you can look at the lake all weekend,” I said.

  There were only two bags I insisted on handling myself; both were paper, and both bore the logo of the Saskatchewan Liquor Board. By the time I walked through the front door with them, the car was cleaned out, and the boys and Taylor and Willie were racing past me on their way to the beach.

  When I touched a match to the already-laid fire in the fieldstone fireplace in the living room, it roared to satisfying life. I carried on to the kitchen, placed my paper bags carefully on the table, found the kind of Dutch oven I dreamed of owning before I died, dumped the chili in, and turned on the burner. Dinner was under way. Some nights, I just had all the moves. As a reward, I poured myself two fingers of Glenfiddich and wandered out to the porch, so I could have a good view of Willie and the kids chasing each other along the shoreline. When Willie loped onto the dock, I knew there was nothing between his ears that would allow him to make the correction necessary to avoid disaster. His cannon-ball into the lake when he came to the end of the dock seemed as inexorable as a law of physics. So was the fact that as he splashed to shore, Taylor, Angus, and Eli waded out to greet him. It was a grey day, but I could see their laughter, and warmed by the whisky, my nerves began to unknot. Fifteen minutes later, Peter’s ancient Jeep rolled in, followed closely by the sensible Volvo station wagon that had replaced Mieka and Greg’s bright yellow Volkswagen Bug the week after Madeleine was born. Suddenly, the odds that I would make it through the weekend had turned in my favour.

  The first moments of the reunion of my two oldest children were shot through with the currents of love and competitiveness that had always flowed between them. They were eighteen months apart, and their feelings for each other still had the primal intensity of the nursery. It didn’t surprise me that, after the initial round of hugs and greetings, they ended up together, arms draped loosely around one another’s waists, connected again. Physically, they were very different. Peter was tall, reed thin, pale, and serious, the inheritor of my late husband’s black Irish genes; Mieka was dark blond, hazel-eyed, with skin that tanned easily and pleasing curves that would become roundness after forty, and Rubenesque after fifty. Seeing them side by side again, I
felt the familiar rush of pleasure.

  My son-in-law looked at them with amusement. “The road company Donny and Marie.” He leaned down and brushed my cheek with a kiss. “Good to see you, Jo.”

  “Good to see you, too.” I said. I took my granddaughter from his arms. “And it’s wonderful to see you.” As she gazed at me, Madeleine dimpled with the look her mother described as “crazed with delight.”

  “Look at that smile,” I said. “I knew she’d remember me.”

  Greg shook his head. “Hate to break it to you, Jo, but the old geezer who pulled us out of the mud at the turnoff showed Maddy his gums and got the same response. That little lady’s smiles go everywhere.”

  “You’d better start reading ‘My Last Duchess’ to her,” I said. “Promiscuous smiling can get a woman in a heap of trouble.”

  Mieka’s mind wasn’t on Robert Browning. She narrowed her eyes at the beach. “What are the kids doing down there?”

  “Resisting temptation,” I said. “I told them it was too cold to swim, and you’ll notice that they are obeying the letter of the law – wading only up to their kneecaps.”

  Peter turned to his sister. “Race you down there,” he said. “And since you’re still packing those new mum pounds, I’ll spot you thirty seconds.”

  After they took off, Greg shrugged and picked up a suitcase. “Must make you proud of your parenting skills when you look at those two, Jo. Come on inside and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “I’m way ahead of you.” I said.

  I led him through the living room, pointed out the liquor-board bags, and took Madeleine out to the porch. There was a rocker in the corner by the window and I commandeered it. I rested my chin on top of my granddaughter’s head and pointed.

  “Look down there at the lake,” I said. “Your mum’s pushing your uncle Pete into the water.”

  Greg came in carrying a bottle of Great West beer. He snapped the cap, leaned forward, and peered out the window. “It’s great to see Mieka happy again,” he said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Not with us,” he said quickly. “But Ariel’s death has hit Mieka hard. The minute we heard about it on the provincial news, I wanted to call you, but Mieka said this was something she had to talk to you about face to face. She and Ariel have been pretty tight the last couple of months.”

  On the beach, Eli, soaked to the skin, waved wildly. I waved back, then turned to Greg. “I had no idea they’d even kept in touch.”

  “They hadn’t, but when Maddy was born, Mieka found Ariel’s address on the university e-mail and sent her an announcement. Then they picked up where they left off.”

  He touched the bottom of his Great West to his daughter’s bare stomach, and she gave him a look that would have curdled milk.

  “There goes Father of the Year,” I said.

  “I’ll win her back,” he said. “She can’t resist my version of ‘Louie, Louie.’ ”

  “Who can?” I tucked Madeleine’s shirt inside her shorts. “Greg, I’m glad Ariel and Mieka connected again.”

  “Me too,” he said. “It seemed to mean a lot to both of them, especially after Ariel got pregnant.”

  “After Ariel got pregnant?”

  Greg flushed. “Maybe that wasn’t supposed to be general knowledge.”

  “Everything about Ariel’s life will be general knowledge now,” I said grimly.

  “It’s going to be a zoo, isn’t it?” Greg said.

  Instinctively, I drew my granddaughter closer. “Yes,” I said, “it’s going to be a zoo.”

  Dinner that first night at the lake was close to perfect. Semi-penitent about their forbidden swim, the kids threw themselves into dinner preparations. Taylor laid out the plates and cutlery, the boys cut up fresh vegetables, Peter made garlic bread, Greg poured the milk and opened the wine, and Mieka sugared the berries and whipped the cream for strawberry shortcake.

  Finally, we gathered at the round oak table and, enclosed by the circle of light cast by the overhead lamp, we ate and laughed and ate some more. When Angus proposed a vote on the question of whether this chili was the best I had ever made, the ayes triumphed. By the time Willie was licking the last of the whipped cream off the strawberry-shortcake plate, Madeleine’s eyes had grown heavy. At Taylor’s insistence, we took Madeleine down to the bedroom she and I were sharing. Mieka positioned her daughter in the centre of the king-size bed, and Taylor crawled in beside her; then Mieka and I sat on the edge of the bed and took turns making up stories about the patches on the quilt that covered them until they were both asleep.

  For a moment, Mieka and I stood looking down at the girls. “Taylor’s dream has come true,” I said. “All week, she’s been talking about having Madeleine bunk in with her.”

  Mieka’s expression was impish. “Do you want to make my dream come true?”

  “If I can.”

  She lowered her voice. “Let me put up Maddy’s crib in here, so I can spend a night alone with her father.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I said.

  We walked outside together to get the crib. Mieka opened the back gate on their Volvo wagon, then peered up at the sky. “Looks like it might clear off.”

  I moved closer to her. “I feel very blessed tonight.”

  My daughter’s face was uncharacteristically grave. “So do I.”

  For a moment we were silent, then I said, “Greg told me that Ariel was pregnant.”

  My daughter’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

  “No,” I said. “But I’m glad she felt close enough to you to tell you.”

  “And it was just a fluke we’d become friends again,” she said sadly. “I was ringing the bells after Maddy was born to make sure that everyone I’d ever known heard the good news.”

  “Your dad and I did the same thing when you were born. Unfortunately, that was before e-mail. When I saw our long-distance bill the next month, I cried for an hour.”

  Mieka laughed softly. “Poor Mum. Anyway, most people just e-mailed back, but Ariel sent a beautiful box of books: Madeline, of course, but also Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She also sent Maddy a note. It was so poignant. Ariel said that these had been her favourite books when she was a little girl. She said she hoped Maddy would forgive her for reading them before she sent them, but she wanted to get back to a time when she was happy. Of course, as soon as I read the note, I called her. I was all raging hormones – Earth Mother, certain I could fix everything. Mum, Ariel was so different than I thought she would be.”

  “How did you think she would be?”

  My daughter shrugged. “Dismissive?”

  “Why would she be dismissive?”

  My daughter rolled her eyes. “Mum, Ariel had a Ph.D. before she was twenty-seven, and as you remember only too well, I dropped out of university halfway through my second year.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Most of the time, no, but Ariel was always so perfect.” Mieka pulled the portable crib out of the car and slammed down the gate. “Do you want to hear a nasty little admission? When I heard Ariel had a job in your department, I was jealous.”

  “Jealous?”

  “I had this image of you and her chatting away about world affairs and going to lectures together. You know, like the daughter you always wanted.”

  I touched her arm. “Mieka, you’re the daughter I always wanted.”

  Unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I know that most of the time, but sometimes I wonder if …”

  “If what?”

  “If nothing. I must be PMS-ing. Anyway, that first time I phoned her, Ariel didn’t talk much about herself at all, but she had a lot of questions about me. She wanted to know if I’d felt more connected to life since I’d had Maddy. And she wanted to know – and this is truly bizarre – how you reacted when I dropped out of school.”

  “Why would she care about that?”

  “I don’t know … Sh
e never mentioned it again. After that we mostly e-mailed each other. She had a bunch of theoretical questions about pregnancy – just girlfriend stuff – and then she phoned at Easter and made the big announcement. Two weekends ago, she came up to Saskatoon with an ultrasound photo of her baby. She’d brought Madeleine a gift – a German teddy bear. Ariel said the bear’s name was Serendipity, and she hoped it would always remind Maddy to pay attention to lucky interventions in her life.”

  My daughter was fighting tears. So was I.

  “This just keeps getting worse,” I said. “When Howard and I drove out to tell Charlie yesterday, I didn’t realize that he’d lost Ariel and their baby.”

  Mieka didn’t respond, but even in the sepia light of early evening, I could read the truth in her face.

  “Charlie wasn’t the father,” I said.

  The shake of her head was almost indiscernible. “No,” she said. “The baby wasn’t Charlie’s.”

  “Whose then?”

  “I don’t know. But Mum, somehow I had the sense that the father was someone who just contributed. Ariel was so determined to have a child.”

  “To take her back to the time when she was happy?”

  Mieka bit her lip and nodded affirmation.

  My daughter and I put up the portable crib beside the big bed and tucked the girls in. When we came back to the living room, there were muted cheers.

  “Finally!” Angus groaned. “Listen up, you two, Greg has found something he swears is totally cool.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “If it’s a board game, I’m going to go back there and crawl in next to Maddy.”

  “Not a board game,” said Greg. “A game of exploration in which we test the limits of the human psyche to endure suspense.” His accent became plummy, with each vowel lovingly elongated. “We invite you to a weekend with the Master of the Macabre, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. It appears our hosts here at Katepwa own the complete Hitchcock oeuvre.”